Executive Summary
This report contains a detailed statistical analysis of the results to the survey titled The Bristol Story: reader survey . The results analysis includes answers from all respondents who took the survey in the 199 day period from Tuesday, October 30, 2007 to Friday, May 16, 2008. 177 completed responses were received to the survey during this time.
How did you first find out about the Great Reading Adventure 2008?Response / Count / Percent
Internet search / 4 / 2.3%
Local library / 17 / 9.8%
Local press / 17 / 9.8%
Local radio/ TV / 4 / 2.3%
On-street poster / 4 / 2.3%
School or college / 28 / 16.1%
Word of mouth / 52 / 29.9%
Other (please specify) / 48 / 27.6%
Other Responses:
City Museum & Art Gallery
Graphic novel came in post!
Received book
When I got the book through the door!
got sent the book
Youth Group
Books delivered to office (UWE)
NHS library
E-mailing list I think
Scout Group
Got it as a gift
Book posted to me
Work (public building giving out copies)
Sent to my address
When it arrived through my front door
No idea where u got my name and address!
It was posted through the door.
launch event held at museum
Picked up a book in the CityMuseum
I was sent a copy of 'Bristol Story'
The launch
CityMuseum
Distributed at work
Workplace library promotion (NHS hospita
Saw the books on display in a shop
Whilst visiting the Arnolfini
Was sent a copy by post.
I was involved in arranging distribution
Poster at work
I work for the Bristol team - SWRDA
Our reading group
A friend
Information circulated at work
Saw it at the Arnolfini
Used to work at BCDP
The books were on the Ferry
Went to the launch
I didn't
Received in the post
Book left at work
Received in the Post
Bookshop
Sent it, as I work for the council
Delivered to me
Sent to my home address
Council employee
Posted to me
Delivered by post
Community Show at local theatre
Was this the first time you had read a graphic-style book?
Response / Count / Percent
Yes / 66 / 37.9%
No / 108 / 62.1%
Please tell us what you thought about The Bristol Story.
The book is great, I love all the funny bits that the author has included through the food. The book is easy to follow too.
Very good indeed, but WHEN is the time we are all supposed to be reading it together?
Brilliant! Very entertaining - it kept my interest from start to finish and the illustrations are excellent. I'm so pleased I managed to pick up a copy by chance on my two-day visit to Bristol. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Very Good. Easy to read. Not over complicated with too much detail
Fantastic! Great read, loads of stuff I didn't know. Found it really interesting and will be forcing friends to read it.
very informative and interesting
Very funny, witty and informative and accessible for all ages! Brilliant!
Every bit as good as the Brunel book and that was excellent. Easy to read, entertaining and very informative.
Loved it. Read it in one sitting and, despite a prior interest in local history, found much in it that I didn't already know. I especially liked the tone - a very engaging mix of fun and fact.
Loved the style and presentation. Great humour. But the underlying stories are really well researched - they made a serious attempt not to recycle some of the less accurate populist histories. I imagine it would be a great tool for involving people who wouldn’t normally pick up history books.
Entertaining and informative
Very good. Delighted it went right back in History. We get modern stuff too often.
Excellent format,an amazing amount of information. Fantastic mix of myths and facts. Something I will go back to over and over again and know I will find something new each time. Marvelous graphics.
It was a little too brief, for me, but I am over 50!
I found the jokey style a little bit much in places, but appreciate the wide audience that the book was being aimed at. I did laugh at some of the jokes. I especially liked the bit where Pope Gregory says 'they are not angles but angels' and the caption says 'when he had stopped laughing at his own rubbish joke'!. I learnt a lot about history (I was quite poor at history at school). And Some very interesting facts about Bristol. It's nice to understand the history behind Bristol's many interesting buildings and landmarks. I especially liked the medieval history.
Enjoyed it greatly! Lovely way to learn about the town in which I live, without boring me.
I thought it was absolutely superb. An I have lived in Bristol all my life and the Bristol Story me so many new things! There should be one for every city in the world! It was superbly written, and could reach people of all types and abilities! Superb! Well done! More!
The whole book from start to finish was inspired! It had me hooked! So visual and so informative! It will be great to use as a teaching resource! Well done!!
What a brilliant book, funny enough for the kids but educational enough for the parents. I'm 59 and thought it was brilliant. I can remember going to the Goram fair when I was about 8 years old in Hengrove/Whitchurch. You must have done loads of research. Well done.
The 'story' is obviously interesting, the presentation makes it inaccesible to many because of excessive detail in pictures and very small font.
I thought the book was very well executed - informative, funny and engaging. A great format to bring history to life for kids and adults. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Amazing illustrations! The Story felt quite long and the pace flagged at times, but what a great way to bring history alive.
Brilliant! I'm not from Bristol so it was great to read about all the history and find out about the famous landmarks.
Feedback from around the Brunel Scout District was that the book was really good and very informative.
Really enjoyed the book. Learnt a lot about Bristol. Whilst it was clearly aimed at children was very informative.
Hugely entertaining, the illustrations were wonderful & the amount of history contained within was highly surprising, considering the lightness in tone of the book and the simple and easy read it proved to be. Even for an old geezer in his mid forties!
An excellent fun book
Very informative.
Great. A perfect mix of funny/ engaging and informative.
Funny and informative.
Incredibly informative; good fun.
Excellent and good fun
Well though out, interesting, funny
Brilliant!
It was definitely aimed at a younger age-group than my own. I found some of the jokes a bit of a put-off, but got into the narrative style quite easily. I get bored with books very easily and I think this was a good introduction to Bristol's history.
A novel and interesting way of communicating ideas.
The Bristol Story is an excellent combination of education and entertainment, cleverly designed to appeal to all ages. Its serious and accurate historical information is enlivened with delightfully expressive drawings and leavened with an endearing sense of humour. With a thoroughly engaging attitude to history, it provides simple and concise explanations of complex issues, clarifying the logic of how and why the city and its people developed as they did.
Some interesting bits of Bristol's history that I didn't know about
An excellent, witty and well-researched book, appealing to all ages
Great, amusing, clear and very reasonably accurate butas a middle aged man wearing specs the text was difficult to read.
It was factually correct and entertaining
Good, well presented and interesting.
Fantastic - A good read, well present, enjoyable and I loved the narrative style.
I thought it was a nice way to portray a complicated narrative to people who might otherwise think it 'boring' or not their thing.
Although it is harder to read a graphic-style book, I found the Bristol Story both amusing and educational - extremely well written,beautifully illustrated and almost impossible to put down.
Interesting, informative and a delight to read.
Very interesting and detailed read, laid out in a very easy follow cartoon style.
really funny and I like all the story about BristolIdidn’t know thanks
good, accessible choice
Having some ties with Bristol (language student, Bristolian friends) good background info. Too much text in places.
As a Bristolian I really loved it and found out quite a few things I didn't know. I liked the artwork but felt an A4 format rather than A5, as it the font was too small even for me.
Great expectations, but did not really meet them. Badly written in parts.
Well illustrated, informative and fun.
Informative, coherent, easily read. Useful intro to Bristol History
interesting
Interesting and well laid out,
great fun - lots of things that I didn't know about Bristol
It was fantastic - so much information, really funny. The only criticism I had was the writing was a bit on the small side
I read a lot of popular history but confess I found the graphic novel poorly designed and the text relatively uninteresting. I lost interest after about 10 pages and didn't have any desire to read on.
I thought it was fantastic! It looks interesting for a start, which is half the battle with attracting readers. As soon as you begin to read you find it really engages your attention and is informative, yet entertaining. I chuckled to myself many times while reading it. Having recently moved to Bristol I loved finding out about its history, myths and legends. It was great to get an insight into how Bristol has come to look the way it does, as well as the parts that have been lost and forgotten. The text also explained a little about the characteristic traits and vernacular of Bristolians. The best bit about a book of this kind is the wider effect that it can have; I have recounted many of the interesting facts the book showed me to several friends, some of whom were born and bred in Bristol. I even sent a few copies to friends who were born here and moved away years ago.
I thought it was brilliant. Very readable, engaging, and well balanced in terms of historical narrative.
I haven't read the whole book but what I did read was interesting and done in a fun way
Easy to read, great way to learn and remember new facts about the city. Interesting too.
Absolutely brilliant. Funny, interesting and informative.
I found it easy to read and it kept me interested all the way through.
I thoroughly enjoyed finding out the history side, liked the balance between big events and normal life in different times. I felt though that it was a tough slog to get to the end, keep the momentum going. I don't think I'd have felt like that if it had been in a text format, just being in a graphic style maybe made me assume I'd be able to finish it quickly - which I couldn't. I probably read about 80% over a couple of evenings and then didn't come back to it for a fortnight.
Excellent. Interesting, real information made even more accessible through the plain but punchy writing style, humorous illustrations, witty comments and 'did you know?' extras.
Well presented brief history of Bristol, Not inaccurate and not an in-depth analysis.
Good, although still more of a book than a graphic novel - very dense text, but interesting facts and well told.
I am dyslexic and the type face was so poor I struggled through the first chapter, but couldn't face any more. OK it didn't help that it was in black text and my preferred colour is blue, but even so I read 'normal' books in black text and I have had no problems with the other graphic novels I've read in the past.
The Bristol story was very well drawn and contained some interesting information, but I found a lot of the text was too small and off-puttingly dense. I think I could have benefited from some hefty editing. The book didn't read like a true graphic novel as most of the story was told through the text, not by the text and image combined. I was also unsure of the age group the book was aimed at.
Was generally very impressed. As a professional archaeologist and historian i found it's combination of historical facts (mostly accurate!) and cartoon/graphic style refreshing and easily accessible.
Ace
Very informative and packages in a fun, colourful and easy to read style.
It was exciting and funny and I couldn't get my head out of it.
Very easy to read and informative. Good graphics, amusing and they tell the story very well.
Really interesting, fun and informative. Fantastic illustrations.
Very cleverly done - factual, dynamic, acceptable to all ages.
Excellent
It is interesting and in a format that I like. I was at first confused about whether it was aimed at adults or children.
interesting but the small text and black and white made it difficult for younger readers
I think it's great fun and informative. I haven't in the meantime looked up all the historical details on the internet, but one mistake I already found: Bristol isn't mentioned in Shakespeare's Richard II, act 3, scene 2 but in scene 1!
It was an interesting way to get the history of Bristol across to a wide range of people.
the Bristol story was really good and interesting
It was long and interesting
I thought it was great I’ve never read a book like the Bristol Story before.
It was amazing to read and was exciting from Bristol’s past.
I really liked it i never knew how cool Bristol was I love comics so Ireally liked working on the Bristol story
it was good to read and very interesting
It was interesting about my city. BRISTOLCITY!!!!!!
I like it because it help me do the quit question
it was very enjoyable
The read was great.
great I loved it!
It was very interesting and, the words in there was very cool.And it tells u alot in the past.
it was so interesting and wicked I’ve read it ten times.
Its a lot of pages but it was good
I liked it because it gave the history of Bristol
It was cool !
good and interesting
good
I liked the information that the book had in it and I learnt a lot.
good
It was interesting to know what happened before I was born and what Bristol is really like
it was very good because of the information it gave you
it was good and a bit funny
it was interesting and fun to read
Very informative in a fun way
Badly illustrated and inaccurate
Fantastic. For someone like myself that reads very little, this little book was captivating. Congrats to all.
Fantastic - I liked everything about it! The blend of fun and facts was spot-on, I learned loads even though I have lived here for years.
Great - loved it and learnt a lot
A fantastically powerful book, both in terms of its graphic content and the breadth and depth of the story it told.
I found it very difficult to get in to, it is a chronological presentation of history, not a story as such, I did not get beyond the first section because it was not accessible to me. The pages were too crowded with information, I could not relate to the characters and there was nothing to grab my attention.
Too much text in places. Story wasn't engaging enough overall to keep my attention.
Absolutely brilliant. A great read, a gripping story with top notch illustration.
Very interesting - I learned a lot of new things about Bristol
Brilliant. It was funny, informative and fascinating. Really good to learn about the history of the city. I've recommended it to loads of friends.
Interesting and very informative. What a great way to get across information that i normally find boring!
I thought it was excellent. A good balance of fact and humour with great illustrations. I thought the content was pitched about right - simple enough to engage younger readers but with enough detail to intrigue older readers who could then pursue topics of particular interest.
Excellent. Easy to read and well told. very informative
I loved it. informative in a fun way
Very interesting & found out thing that I didn't know before about Bristol. Although an entertaining and dip-in-able book... I do worry that the cartoon style assumes that kids won't read a block of text...Surely that's a very low expectation. Perhaps a mixture of cartoon style and blocks of text would have been a good idea.
Fantastic and such a good way to connect people of all ages to read and read about history! well done!
Excellent! I was expecting something a little more " serious " in tone, I was pleasantly surprised and delighted with the lighter feel.
It was excellent
Overall, I thought it was excellent. I liked the graphics and enjoyed reading the entire book. There were some judgements I didn't agree with eg '... the highly trained murderers of the Roman army...', but that seems inevitable in any such publication. A very good read indeed.